


The Power in a Name

by Chancy_Lurking



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Banned Together Bingo, Fae & Fairies, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Motherhood, Nathan Wesninski's Bad Parenting, POV Mary Hatford, POV Outsider, Wordcount: 100-500
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:40:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28079343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chancy_Lurking/pseuds/Chancy_Lurking
Summary: Maybe forcing a new name onto a fey child is its own kind of magic—unique to humans, or mothers—because he learns to do it himself while she isn’t watching.(Mary observes her son's evolution.)
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 2
Kudos: 66
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	The Power in a Name

**Author's Note:**

> Banned Together Bingo Square: Evolution
> 
> …In which I exploit the word “evolution” to make it reference a person? This may not count, but I tried and I like it so I’m sharing it anyway. First fic for AFTG, woo!

The Wesninski’s are never referred to by name, not given ones anyway. To be identified as a group is to be known for your strength; to be singled out is to be controlled.

Mary Hatford had not known this, never had many dealings with the fey until she stepped into a ring of mushrooms to unite their families. She gave The Butcher her name when asked.

She doesn’t allow her son to make this mistake.

Her son is called Nathaniel because there is also strength in being known by the name of someone much stronger than you. It also steals the last of Mary’s teeth, her ability to protect him from anything. Whatever she may feel for The Butcher, however much she may not have wanted to be a mother, she won’t curse her son’s name.

It’s her own fault she loses him. She teaches him too well in an attempt to make herself love him.

When he’s young, he’s the spitting image of his father, but she doesn’t spit in his face, she calls him _Abram_ and tells him never to tell a soul. He is little and sweet—bruises like a little sweet thing—but he does what she tells him. Maybe forcing a new name onto a fey child is its own kind of magic—unique to humans, or mothers—because he learns to do it himself while she isn’t watching.

Her son is called Nathaniel, _Junior_ by his father, and should not be able to resist those ties. And yet, with blood in his mouth and iron burns around his neck, he does what she has never been able to. He tears a hole in the veil, scrambles out like an animal through an open door.

Mary hates him for it, really, but she won’t curse her son’s name. Even though she _knows_ it.

Maybe it is the magic of mothers that allows her to watch her son’s evolution through the veil if she bleeds for it. Blood is all she has so she uses it.

Alex’s hair is shorn to his skull, his eyes stormy grey; he doesn’t speak. Chris is a blonde with his mother’s hatred of mushrooms and open spaces. Stefan only speaks French, the southern kind, and keeps his hair shaggy and brown.

Neil is a street kid with a Baltimore accent who jumps at shadows and somehow still smiles like a conman. Mary likes this son least; he has forgotten himself.

This son has the breath knocked from his lungs by a blood hunter, but doesn’t _run_ , the fool. He lets himself get trapped in this man’s orbit, _indebts_ himself to his clan. He whispers every name he’s ever had against his lips like Mary’s efforts meant _nothing_ to him.

“ _Abram_ ,” the man calls him, and it feels like betrayal, because it’s not wholly true anymore. He’s made a new species of himself; she has never known a _Neil_.

Mary’s son is named Nathaniel.

She doesn’t know what happened to him.


End file.
